Sodapop
by grottofied
Summary: After being honorably discharged from Iraq, Kakashi comes home neurotic, shaken, and bored, only to become a professor at Waterford Medical School. After a particularly bad flashback, one of his students, Kou Langer (otherwise known as Cola) gifts him a service dog by the name of Pepsi and Kakashi decides to, slowly, open his life to them.
1. Pepsi

128 pens later, I am still excruciatingly bored.

I drum with them: on the edges of desks, on walls, on textbooks. Anywhere. I'm sure I drive my students insane when I do it during the exams I proctor. The smart one's have taken to sitting in the back, not only because the sound carries less, but also because they're safe from the ink that splatters everywhere when the pen breaks.

They call me Professor Pen-Killer behind my back. They think I don't pay attention but I always do. I always pay attention; I'm always _at_ attention, with nervous energy jittering from my stomach to my hands, which quake if I'm still for long enough. I hate to see it, so I just don't stay still.

My phone buzzes on my desk, making me jump a little bit. I've gotten used to the sound. Almost. I turn it over to see a text message lighting up the screen.

GAI: Lunch?

I type back my declination automatically, which makes this the fourteenth time in a row that I have turned down plans with my ardent friend - excuse me - _rival_, as he likes to call himself.

But of course, because he knows when something is wrong with me, I get another text message.

GAI: Bad day, rival?

KAKASHI: bored. meeting student during lunch hour tho. sorry

I should be grading papers, but Gai's right. It's been a bad day. Ever since being discharged, it's been a series of bad days and less bad days. I sigh and adjust my surgical mask back over my face, tricking myself into believing I have a gas mask on. It makes me feel safer. A glance at the clocks shows that I have three hours to kill.

Instead of being responsible, I lean back in my chair and, against my better judgement, go to sleep.

_And plunge straight into a nightmare. A familiar one. Mud and blood. Screaming. I need to find my squad. Need to fix them. Gun going off right next to me when someone jumps into my trench so I point my rifle at his guts and blow his intestines out but not before he reaches forward with a flash of a knife and it hurts, it hurts, my eye-_

"Professor."

I punch straight and catch him in the shoulder but before I can get him again, he leaps away, his hands up. I've seen that sign before and how easy it is to grab a gun and shoot, so I step towards him, needing to subdue him when he kneels, hands still over his head.

_That_ is my qualification of a universal sign of surrender.

"Professor, it is September 14 and we are in Waterford School of Medicine," he recites calmly, looking straight into my eyes. His arms don't even shake. "This is not a war zone. You are safe. I have no weapons. I am a student." The only sound in the room after that is my harsh breathing, muffled by my surgical mask. "It's alright, Professor. You're safe."

I can feel the sweat running down my face. I glance to the left, quickly, and see the bookcases that line my office, not dirt and broken bodies. When I realize my hands are curled in the air, holding a gun only I can see, I take a deep breath and drop my arms.

"Ex-military?" the student asks, still crouched on the floor.

"Why are you here?" I respond, collapsing backwards into my chair. I resist the urge to pull my mask down. I don't want the stranger to see the scar. "Get up."

He does so, lowering his hands.

"I had an appointment with you. You wanted to ask me why I wasn't handing in any of my homework."

"So why aren't you handing in any of your homework?"

"Because as long as I do well on the exams, I don't need to hand in homework."

"All right, then. You're dismissed."

But he doesn't leave. Instead, he walks forward and sits in a chair across from me.

"You don't really care, do you? Whether I hand in my homework or not."

"Policy makes me ask, not compassion. What you decide to do with your homework doesn't concern me."

"You look like you need some water, professor."

"I need something a lot more alcoholic than water," I snap and immediately regret it. I try to make my voice more regretful, even though he doesn't look the least bit offended, "Sorry I hit you."

"I can take a punch." He looks around the room, dark eyes taking in the sparse furniture and empty walls.

I remember how he dropped to the floor immediately, without thinking. That's muscle memory speaking, not rational decision-making. He's done this, on many occasions, if his reaction time says anything.

"You've seen PTSD before." It's a statement, and it comes out more accusatory than I meant it to be.

"I had to volunteer at hospitals," he focuses back on me. "I've worked with war veterans."

"Not a war veteran," I respond curtly. "Don't call me that. I didn't outlive the war. It kicked my ass and I got sent home."

"But you still survived."

"And that's all I'm doing. Surviving."

"Don't you think surviving is a talent?" There's a strange expression arranged on his face; it looks like a cross between curiosity and thoughtfulness.

I don't answer. I don't even know what he means.

"If you're done asking me questions, get out."

"Are you getting help, Professor?"

"My, my. Nosy brat," I drawl and he smiles, white teeth opposite to his dark hair. "Don't need help."

His mouth twitches, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, his pupils zero in on the scar that slashes my left eye, then flickers to my mask. But in the next second, he smiles again and stands up.

"Have a nice day, Professor."

I pick up my most recent pens and start tapping as he moves out. At the doorway, he stops. I almost expect him to say something when he continues out into the hall.

One of the pens crack in my hand.

129.

* * *

He's in my lecture.

I mean, yes, I knew he was in my class, but the next day, I glance up briefly to catch his passing gaze. He nods and smiles. After a moment, I nod back. It happens in the next class, too. And the class after that. He never speaks to me, but only nods and smiles, as if we're sharing the greatest secret in the world. I guess it's partially my fault that he continues the habit; he's the only student I nod back to.

Eventually, like examining the routine of a wild animal, I start to pick up on certain things. He arrives to class early, and always sits in the far left-hand corner, all the way in the front. He takes notes with both hands, that ambidextrous fucker, and manages to spike my jealousy every time he switches hand mid-sentence.

He doesn't seem to have many friends, but seems to be able to make small talk well enough.

I never look up his name, though. I don't know any of their names. They are one innocent, quivering entity of laughing and arguing voices. I never want to associate and he will not be an exception.

So, when he comes to visit a week and a half later during one of my bad days, I'm surprised, unpleasantly surprised.

"Good afternoon, Professor," he says, peeking through my door without knocking.

"Office hours are cancelled - oh, it's you."

"It's me," he agrees, placing a cup of ice coffee in front of me.

"What's this?" I ask, suspicious.

"Coffee. You looked like you were having a rough day."

"If it looked like I was having a rough day, you should have stayed away," I say, words acidic, and don't touch the coffee.

"Are you free for a little bit, Professor?" he continues, in the same even tone of voice. It's soothing, and I decide there's no reason to be difficult.

"Don't have office hours. What do you want?"

"I have something for you. I'll be back, Professor."

Before I can protest, he slips out the door, his footsteps echoing as he walks down the hall. I look down at my fingernails, the blood of three pens staining across my hands in patches. I reach for another pen and then stop, forcing myself to be patient. Waiting is the hardest part. I think the iced coffee agrees, because the ice shifts with a sigh, condensation running down the sides of the plastic cup.

Suddenly, I hear faint jingling. Not bells, but the soft clinking of a chain, accompanied by his footsteps, and... is that clicking? The clicking of something on the floor, but before I can put together why these sounds are vaguely familiar, they walk in together, and I am almost lost in ice-blue eyes as sharp as winter.

"Sit, girl."

She sits, the black parts of her fur glinting in the fluorescent lighting. A bright pink tongue darts out to lick her nose.

"This is Pepsi. She's a Siberian husky. I found her at a kill shelter and I couldn't leave her and, well," he shrugs and unclips her leash. "Say hello, Pepsi."

She lets out a soft woof and pads over to my seat, leaning her head on my knee. I pat her head and scratch behind her ears, all the while staring at those silvery eyes.

"I started training her in basic commands, but she got all of them within a week, so I started her on some simple PTSD service dog training and she's pretty well off into that now, even though I started training her when she was an adult. She can turn on lights, and do nightmare recognition, and give seizure warnings, and a whole bunch of other things, because I didn't have many friends and had too much time on my hands. She's fully vaccinated and I have a list of all her commands and the type of food she eats and her toys are in my car. You can buy her a new bed, but she really will just sleep on your bed, because I can't train her out of that for some reason and... what?" he stops when he glances at my face.

"You're giving her to me?"

"Uh, if you'll take her, yeah." He cocks his head the same time Pepsi cocks hers. "I don't need a service dog anymore."

"Anymore?"

"Anymore," he says firmly, not elaborating.

I turn my eyes back to Pepsi, who is grinning to expose her long, white teeth. I look back to the student and then back at her, hit with an abrupt sense of shame.

"I don't even know your name," I mumble.

"It's Kou Langer," he fills in, trying to bite back his laugh.

"Kou... Langer?" I repeat. "Kou... Lan - Cola?"

"Yeah." His eyes crinkle in the corners when he laughs, until Pepsi barks. "My mom remarried and it just so happened that my new dad's last name was Langer and here I am."

"And here you are," I say, more for myself. "I can't take Pepsi. She's your dog."

"You can and you will," he's still laughing. "I can't keep her in my apartment anymore. The landlady got mad that Pepsi kept chewing up stuff. The space is too small for her. It's better if you keep her and she'll be good for you, too."

"Nosy," I retort, but soon after, I say, "thank you."

* * *

When I bring her to my house, Pepsi jumps out of the car, rolls in the grass, and runs barking up the long walkway to the front door. She comes back to me in a heart beat, gently mouthing the handle of my computer case, and walks with it, placing it at the front door and wagging her tail. She stays on my left side, as if understanding that my vision is impaired.

Pepsi howls and that's suits me just fine. It's countryside where I live.

I howl with her.

It's a good day.


	2. Fanta

The first time I admit to his existence is two days later, after lecture is over. Just as I finish up and start to hear the rustle of papers that signals when the people in the back start to leave, I turn on my microphone again.

"Kou Langer, I'd like to see you after class. It's about your mandatory homework."

I see him freeze at the sound of his name and then half-turn to me, confused. I beckon with one finger and he shrugs, flipping his messenger bag over his shoulder.

"Free today, Langer?"

"Not if I have mandatory homework, Professor."

"Mandatory homework aside, it's Friday. Don't you have plans?"

"Not really," he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugging again, "How's Pepsi doing?"

"You can see for yourself," I say, putting away my laptop, "You're coming over today. I need you to help me build a dog house."

"Is that an order, Professor?" but he's grinning, his pale face lighting up.

"It's not really an order, but it's close enough to one so that you have to obey. Also, I have the power to fail you, so you'd better come along."

He giggles all the way to the car but he stops when I toss him my keys. He gets into the drivers seat quietly and starts the ignition. When he's pulled out of the parking lot and driving down the highway by my direction, he looks at me quickly, his eyes straying back to the road.

"Does driving make you nervous, Professor?"

"A lot of things make me nervous," I say and lean back in my seat, letting the AC blow into my face. The air smells metallic. "I'm getting a service dog license for Pepsi. Hopefully, that'll make me less nervous."

"That's good," he says, and his lips curl up in a different kind of smile. I look away from him and out the window, watching the buildings slowly fade away into shadowy woods. The late evening sun dyes everything orange and I am left with the feeling that today was also a good day.

"What else makes you nervous, Professor?"

"Nosy," I say mildly. "You call me Professor, but you never treat me as one."

"You don't act as one," Cola counters. "Don't you have friends to hang out with so you can do whatever old men do?"

"Gai was busy today. Iruka's spending time with his nephew. Everybody else is still serving or-" I stop short before adding the "-or dead" part. "And I'm not that much older than you."

"A whole decade older than me."

"A decade isn't a long time," I stretch and slump in my seat. "An hour is longer."

He lets me soak in silence, which I appreciate.

We pull up to our driveway and Pepsi's waiting there for me, wagging her tail ferociously. When I give her the signal, she bounds up to me, licking my hands with adoration.

"Pepsi! Attention!" Cola barks and she raises her body and sits on her haunches, looking like a giant rabbit. "At ease!" She lowers herself and snuggles her head in between my knees. "You have a huge house, Professor."

"It was my father's. He left it to me in his will."

"Is all this land yours, too?"

"A hundred square miles all around."

"Cool." His eyes shine. "Cool."

The weather isn't, though, rocketing up to the mid-eighties in early October. After an hour of lining up planks of wood and nailing them together, he strips off his shirt and I'm greeted with a chest and stomach even paler than his face.

If I were alone, I would have taken off my shirt by now, but with him here, I can only sweat silently. What bothers me most is my surgical mask, and maybe Pepsi can tell that I'm uncomfortable because she whines and sits next to me.

Ten minutes later, I feel like I'm suffocating, but I don't want him to see my scar. My hands start to shake and my thoughts start to wheel while I wonder what to do. Then, he places a warm hand on my wrist.

"Any scars or wounds won't bother me, Professor," he says gently, "I've said it before, but I've worked with soldiers a lot."

His voice is even, as it was before, but it's Pepsi's long, drawn-out whine that makes me reluctantly take off my mask. And I know he sees the ragged scar that stretches from the left corner of my mouth the the bottom of my cheekbone, but the only thing he says is:

"You have nice freckles, Professor. I wish I could tan like you."

I relax.

By the time we're done with the dog house and the sun is drowning in between the evergreens, I've taken off my shirt as well, letting him see the scars and scratches and the deep, vertical line that runs from my wrist to elbow.

That night, after I feed Pepsi and Cola, after he takes a shower, complaining that my clothes are too big on him, after he snoops around all the rooms in the house, he sits on the couch, flipping through the TV channels while I grade.

"Can I touch it?"

Absorbed in my work, I don't look up until he asks again, pointing at his own mouth.

"Why do you want to touch it?" I feel self-conscious again, and find myself moving to cover my mouth.

"It's interesting. It's like a vase. If a vase is smooth, you don't really feel the need to touch it. But if there's a vase with grooves and cracks, you want to run your fingers over it."

"So I'm pottery now?" But I let him trace the twisting scar until he reaches the end of it, while I flick his hair back into some sense of order. I move away when he touches the pale scar down my arm.

He doesn't say anything and hugs Pepsi. After a moment, he pulls up one leg of his borrowed shorts and shows me the countless of horizontal scars on his inner thigh.

I nod and he smiles.

"As long as they've healed, Cola," I say, writing corrections on a student's homework.

"Mhm," he agrees, petting Pepsi.

* * *

In the corners of the night, Pepsi howls me awake from a nightmare and turns on the lights while I shake, pressing my mask over my face, clutching onto her fur with one hand when she returns to my side. She burrows her head between my knees, licking my face. The door opens and closes and I feel Cola's fingers on my jumping pulse and his far away voice tells me to breathe slowly. He doesn't even flinch at the gaping hole of my missing left eye.

"Close your eyelid, Professor," I hear him say, and it corresponds with his fingers tapping my left cheek, "you might get dust in the socket." Then, after a moment, "You're at home, Professor, in Washington wilderness. It is October 3rd. Pepsi is next to you and so am I. This is not a war zone. You are safe." Another two harsh breaths. "You'll be alright, Professor."

After that, he doesn't say anything else, doesn't touch me, except for his two fingers glued to my pulse point. A lightning rod in a storm.


	3. Ginger Ale

Cola comes over a lot after that.

Sometimes, I'll invite him and sometimes, he'll invite himself. But most of the time, especially when he's studying, he just ends up tagging along with me, quietly catching my keys and driving to my house. He knows the way now. But I know his mind is elsewhere on those days, probably still buried deep into a textbook, so I just look silently out the window, counting the number of deer I see moving through the cool woods. It's not until I push dinner in front of him that he's aware that he's at my place. Then, he looks up, surprised, and smiles when I put a spoon into his hand. And after the license for Pepsi arrives, it becomes the three of us, almost everyday, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

He doesn't study as much as I see the other students do, but he studies enough, if his first exam score says anything. I grade that test in front of him, pausing to look up at him occasionally while he zones out on the couch. The windows are open, letting in the smell of fallen leaves and the rain that streaks patterns down the glass. The room is lit by the warm glow of a lamp, and I'm sure he's dozing. He's taken to raiding my closet of my sweatshirts, especially as the weather grows colder, and he has one on now, the arms pushed up past his elbows.

He hasn't slept well for the past week or so; most of the students don't the week before a test.

"Ninety-three with the curve," I say, capping my pen. He stirs briefly. "So you made the A."

"Is that my test?"

"Yup."

"Are you impressed, Professor?"

I shrug.

"You could have done better."

"You're really touchy, Professor. Did you know that?"

I stop moving and indeed, my fingers were drumming a pattern on his waist a second ago. Before I can move away, he continues:

"I don't mind. I have a younger sister and she was pretty grabby growing up. Just wanted to point it out."

"Is it that noticeable?"

"No. You just do it to Pepsi and me. Then again, I've only seen you with us two. I've been keeping track of little things."

"What kind of little things?" I question, but it's lost in his sudden movement. He grabs a pillow, puts it against me and leans back, eyes closed. "Tired?"

"Exams suck. Thanks a lot."

"What's the point of using me if you're going to use a pillow anyway?"

He ticks up two fingers.

"First of all, no homo if there's a pillow."

"What are you, twelve?"

"Second," he continues, "you can't move or you'll disturb me. And you haven't been sleeping well, either."

"It's been better with Pepsi."

"Has it?" He smiles, and I've come to recognize that content pull of his lips. Nearby, Pepsi yips on the floor in some exciting dream, her legs twitching. Her throat contorts in a half bark. "That's good." He reaches out and touches the life scar down my arm. I jerk, but this time, I don't pull away. He continues brushing soothingly until his fingers stop and his breaths become slow and deep.

"Hey." He doesn't stir. "Hey, you." I gently flick his cheek, but he's out. Sighing, I stand and pick him up, gathering him into my arms like the loose ends of a rag. He is boneless with sleep, but I swing him up easily, and walk into the guest bedroom to place him on the bed.

The first time I lifted him, I almost dropped him because he felt so different. He didn't have the weight of a soldier, heavy with an assault rifle and ammunition, and didn't have the compactness and curving softness of a girl. Instead, his head rolled into the nook of my shoulder, showing an inch of his languid collarbones and fair skin, all sharp bones and pointy edges and somehow, I was still able to hold onto him. He wasn't very heavy, but then again, I was used to dragging two hundred fifty pound soldiers across dust and dirt.

With another person breathing in the room next to mine, I sleep well and wake up 0600 army time. Pepsi is already up and ready to run. She hops to the guest room, excited. I open the door and in the soft sunrise, see Cola still deeply asleep.

"Cola. Time to run."

He only responds with a long, drawn out groan.

"I hate your morning routine," he mumbles, burying his head back into the pillow.

"Come on. You've been doing well." It's true. His slender calves and skinny arms are starting to shift with growing muscles. "You can jog a mile without stopping now."

"And you still aren't satisfied with that."

"It's good for you. You're a med student. You should know that." He doesn't respond, but his breathing levels again, and I know he has fallen asleep. "Pepsi, sing a little."

Long, undulating howls break out from Pepsi's throat, dyeing the air with the frost of the tundra. I let my voice rise and fall with hers and break off with a bark.

Cola lies, covers half drawn over his head, and in the falling bars of morning light that sprinkle through the shade, I see that his eyes are not black, as I thought them to be, but a rich, dark green. With the sun on them, they seem to glow unnaturally.

"You sound like a dog. Not too much wolf in you." Slowly, he gets out of bed, stretching and rubbing his eyes. "When we hear a real wolf call, I'll sing back, and then you'll see how good I am." Sleepily, he starts to tuck in the covers and I watch his half-awake motions, more memory than thought. He always does this.

Outside, it is cold enough for our breaths to cloud. I jog slowly, keeping with Cola, who stubbornly keeps my (watered-down) pace for a mile. Then he slows into a walk, breathing in great gulps of air. Pepsi canters ahead of us, tongue out in a canine laugh.

"I think Professor Might doesn't sit still long enough for you to touch him," he says, still breathing heavily. I quietly mull over his sentence before realizing it is a continuation of yesterday's conversation. "And your friend Iruka doesn't really come over much. So I'm the one you have at hand."

"That's true," I reply. "Gai is very jumpy. It makes me jumpy, too. Come on. Let's turn back."

"You've stopped fidgeting so much, Professor."

I look at my hands, brown and calloused. They don't shake.

"Pepsi's helped a lot. And you."

"And me?" And his eyebrows scrunch into a question mark.

"You're very calm. Like a waterfall."

"Waterfalls aren't calm."

"Consistent, then. Very consistent."

"A lot of people don't like me for that same reason." I can hear the change in his voice, but not in his face because he looks away from me.

"Hey." When he doesn't respond, I step forward and pull him so that he's facing me. "_Hey._ I like you, alright? Alright. And how many more people do you need?"

His smile creeps over his face again.

"Do you like me enough to excuse me from mandatory homework?"

I punch him hard enough to hurt but he doesn't stop smiling.

The sunlight strains through the canopy of shifting leaves, red, yellow, orange, and it falls in patches across my skin. I can hear a whippoorwill start it's throaty song. The trail stretches out in front of us, meandering, covered by a carpet of browning grass and colorful leaves. Yesterday's rain left a damp smell in the air. Next to me is his heartbeat, his footsteps, his breathing, all beating out the steady thumping of his existence.

"What happens in the winter?" he pants, "Do we still run?"

"If you're still around by that time, we'll ski."

"You can ski here?"

"If the snow forms an ice crust. Otherwise, we'll follow trails. It's harder than running, with all the snow. But it's a lot prettier."

"I dunno." He pauses to wipe the sweat off his face with his shirt. "This is pretty, too."

In the distance, the roof of the house comes into view.

"I need to go shopping today," I mutter to myself.

"I'll come with you."

His profile is calm, his cheeks pink with cold.

"Why do you want to come?"

"I need to get snacks. You have none."

"Is there something wrong with your apartment?"

His face doesn't change at my question.

"No. Why do you ask?"

"You spend more time at my house than at yours."

"I told you. I've been keeping track of the little things." I wait for him to explain. Slowly, we approach the house. I take out my keys and unlock the back door. It seems like a long time before he answers. "You seem lonely, even with Pepsi. So I thought I'd keep you company." He shrugs. "It's not bad. I like it. I can be quiet and we can go days without talking but you don't nag me to talk or anything like my mom or my dad."

"I'm not lonely."

"Mhm."

"Do you love your mom?"

"Of course I love my mom," he retorts defensively.

"Do you love your dad?"

"Nosy."

"We're both nosy."

"False. I'm nosy. You're not that nosy. You're inferior to me in nosiness." Then, suddenly, "I thought Professor Might was your best friend."

"He is."

"Then why am I over more than he is?"

I don't answer and start to empty my pockets on the counter so I can take a shower. Pepsi clatters over the tiled floor, chasing a feather that flew in. It's funny to see a dog as big as her leap in the air like a cat.

He doesn't repeat his question.

I realize something else about him at the grocery store: Cola has a sweet tooth.

"A little," he admits when I confront him about it. "My dad's one of those strict Catholic parents that don't let you eat junk food, make you go to church every Sunday, tells you to get straight As, blah, blah, blah." He looks over the assortment of sodas, candy bars, and chips in the shopping cart. "I went to church and I got straight As. But I could never stay away from sweet stuff."

He follows me idly with the cart while I pick out meat and vegetables, sorting through mushrooms and eyeing pieces of skirt steak. I keep Pepsi's leash short in my hand, but she doesn't pull. She's very well-behaved, even if her nose twitches at the slices of roast turkey and ham at the deli.

"You're rich, aren't you?" he asks. I look back at his bored face, chin in his palm, and then turn back to my lettuce.

"I wasn't. I'm alright now. The military paid for my schooling, as long as I gave service in return, so I didn't need to pay off debts or anything. And I don't pay rent, since I have my own house. All I'm doing now is paying for the ridiculous amount of food you eat."

"Sorry," he says, not sorry at all, grinning. I smile back, but the expression drops off his face. "I'm not used to you wearing the mask anymore. I don't know when you're smiling."

"Doggy!" a small child exclaims.

"Ugh, _children_," Cola mutters when a brother and a sister patter up to Pepsi. She wags her tail, pleased with the attention, but patient before anything. I crouch to minimize my threat level.

"Hey, guys," I say, "Where's your mom?"

"Over there," the girl answers, a finger in her mouth. I look behind her, but don't see anyone that looks like a frantic mother. "Can we pet the doggy?"

"Yeah. Her name is Pepsi." She continues to wag her tail under the tapping hands of the kids.

"What happened to your eye?" the boy asks, no doubt asking about my scar.

"I fought a pirate."

"Cool! Are you a ninja?" the boy asks.

"Pepsi isn't a real name, is it?" the girl questions dubiously, finger still in her mouth.

At that instant, a woman with short, frizzy brown hair like the girl's strides over to us.

"There you guys are!"

I stand up again when the kids run back to their mother.

"Her name is Pepsi, mom. Can we get a dog, too?"

"I'm sorry if they were bothering you," she says, taking tiny hands in her own.

"They weren't," I reply and nod at the kids when they say goodbye. I hear them talking about Pepsi as they walk away. Pepsi snuffs at the floor and sits.

"How have you not gotten a girlfriend yet, Mr. I'm Good With Kids And Can Cook."

"Don't swing that way so much anymore."

"A boyfriend, then."

I shrug. The hum of the general workings of a grocery store filled the comfortable silence between us. "That's partly why I don't let Gai over."

"Because you're gay? I don't know what that has to do with it, unless you're harboring some intense crush or something." Unlike me, he never needs to be reminded of what previous conversation I'm alluding to. He seems to have all of them floating in his head, easily picking where we left off as if there was no time between at all.

"It's not that.

"Then?"

I stare at the avocados for a long time, trying to voice my thoughts. Cola rummages through the shopping cart and rips open a carton of Pocky.

"You shouldn't do that."

"Then?" he repeats, breaking the chocolate-coated sticks into his mouth. His eyes have become uncharacteristically focused.

"I feel like I would be tainting him," I say calmly. "Gai was my friend before the war and after. I don't want to - I don't want to be a burden to him. I don't want him to see me wake up with nightmares. I want him to think everything is alright."

He doesn't say anything and instead, holds out the box of Pocky to me. I take some.

"It's not-" he starts and then stops, fishing out a few more sticks. "You won't-"

"Cat got your tongue?"

He scowls and opens his mouth, showing me the half-chewed remains of chocolate and cracker. No cat, though. Pepsi pads up to him and leans against his leg, asking for a head scratch.

"I don't think Professor Might would think of you as a burden," he says, crouching down and petting Pepsi around the throat, "That's a friend privilege, Professor. At least-"

I think this is the first time I've ever seen him at a loss for words.

"I get it, I get it," I say soothingly, gripping his shoulders.

"But do you really?" he questions, frustrated with his unusual lack of eloquence. His eyes, usually sleepy or restless, are still focused intensely. "Because I don't want you to go through life thinking you're a burden because you're not and you're an awesome person-"

"Cola," when I put my hands on his face, he digs the tip of his fingers between the bones in my arm, hard enough to hurt. Under my fingers, I can feel the muscles of his jaw clench and twitch as he grinds his teeth together.

How long had he struggled with this problem himself to show such distress on his face? How long did he question his self-worth?

"Cola, are you going to have a panic attack?"

"No," he says, releasing his grip, "I don't get panic attacks." I don't release mine and hold his head between my palms like I hold Pepsi's sometimes, lightly swaying his head side-to-side.

"It's alright. I get it. Alright? It's alright."

"Because you're an awesome person and it's not good to think like that. It eats at you. You shouldn't think like that. It'll tear you apart."

"Yeah. I know. It's okay."

Slowly, his eyes ease into the sleepy look that he usually has, and he nods.

"Alright," he says, breaking eye contact, and that's when I know he's okay. "Alright."

"Alright," I echo, and remove my hands from his face, the hollow of my palms unfolding from the curve of his jawline. I feel strangely empty and put my hands on Pepsi's head to fill the space. She looks at me like she knows something and woofs softly.

I unhook the mask from behind my ears, trying not to mind the eyes that suddenly stare at me from around the grocery store. When he looks back at me, I smile.


End file.
